“…a mythology is a control system, on the one hand framing its community to accord with an intuited order of nature and, on the other hand, by means of its symbolic pedagogic rites, conducting individuals through the ineluctable psychophysiological stages of transformation of a human lifetime – birth, childhood and adolescence, age, old age, and the release of death – in unbroken accord simultaneously with the requirements of this world and the rapture of participation in a manner of being beyond time.” – Joseph Campbell

“The cultivation of the person lies in the correction of the mind.”
When you are angry, you cannot be correct. When you are frightened, you cannot be correct; when there is something you desire, you cannot be correct; when there is something you are anxious about, you cannot be correct. When the mind is not present, we look, but do not see. We listen, but do not hear, we eat, but don’t taste our food. This is the meaning of “the cultivation of the person lies in the correction of the mind.”

”Religion convinced the world that there’s an invisible man in the sky who watches everything you do. And there’s 10 things he doesn’t want you to do or else you’ll go to a burning place with a lake of fire until the end of eternity. But he loves you!”George Carlin

Interesting facts about religions claiming to be the oldest:

Jainism is older than Buddhism. Vardhman Mahavir the last Tirthankara of the Jainas was the contemporary of Gautama Buddha. The sects organized by the two leaders flourished for centuries together, before and after the Christian era. Although there were difference in the conduct of their monks in as much as the Jaina saints remained naked and the Buddhist monks wore cloths, there were closer resemblances between the two.

Archaeologists have discovered what seems to be remains of the world’s earliest religious worship site in the remote Ngamiland region of Botswana … new archaeological findings in Botswana show that our ancestors in Africa engaged in ritual practice 70,000 years ago – some 30,000 years earlier than the oldest findings in Europe, according to a report printed in the research magazine ‘Apollon’ published by the University of Oslo.

Kemetic Religion

Kemetic – Oldest religion in the world?

Kemetic Rationalism is an ancient branch of the native Egyptian (Kemetic) religion that emphasized rational thought.

Kemet (or KMT) was one of two commonly used native Egyptian terms for ancient Egypt.

Priests of this branch of the ancient Egyptian religion invented mathematics (including geometry, algebra, trigonometry, and most likely calculus), science (including the scientific method, the engineering method, chemistry, biology, botany, physics, astronomy, medicine, surgery, and applied science), and philosophy (including general philsophy, ethics, and logic). It is not known who among the ancient Egyptians invented geometry or algebra, but Imhotep invented trigonometry and Hypatia invented calculus.

Civilizations try on religions like clothes at a market. History is filled with visions and proclamations of truth revealed by shamans and prophets. Each visionary presents rules and laws for people to follow. People are hungry for explanations about things they cannot control. People seek solice for injury from the unknown. It has always been easy to place blame on forces beyond human reach. Todays religions serve a diet of excuses. Many of those excuses target people who follow other paths, believe other prophets or have found their own spiritual guidance. As with historic demonstration, today repeats the atrocities perpetrated in the name of religion. For those without vision, using religion as a personal guide is wonderful, using religion as a weapon is terror.